I’m a Dad. When I run a bath I hang around waiting for it to run. Usually I grab my guitar or my Rubik’s cube and play around for a bit. Most of the time I lose track of time and find my bath is “overflowing” by the time I realise I should still be keeping an eye on it.
My kids are the same, usually they don’t wanna bath, they’re playing games or something.
So I got a couple of Tuya water leak sensors off Ali for £4 each, one for each bath.
I installed mine yesterday on the back of a basket that we keep bath things in hanging from the shower. I’ve run the wire down, around the taps and a dab of glue on the back of the sensor to stick it just below the overflow.
Now when my bath water touches it, all my bedroom, kitchen and front room lights will flash for a second and my GH speakers will announce that my bath is run.
I plan to do the same with my kids’ bath, I just need to find somewhere to put the sensor.
It’s an idea I’ve had for ages. Next idea is to have one placed in the downpipe from my guttering so that I get notified when it’s raining, saving my washing from getting wet. We live in the UK so rain is pretty common.
Any other creative uses for normal sensors? Share them here for the community.
Sick! Can you elaborate on the setup and devices used?
Yeah it’s not rocket appliances, it’s simply a ZigBee water sensor from Tuya hooked into ZigBee2MQTT. The contacts on the wire are set just below my overflow on the bath.
In Node Red (because that’s what I use, not because it’s required) I have a very simple flow. If the leak sensor is “on” trigger a notification and “turn on” the lights in “these areas” with a short flash.
Simple as that.
Works with standard HomeAssistant automation and the various “notify” channels as well. If you’ve got a smart/wifi speaker of some sort you could also use Piper to send custom TTS messages like “the bathtub is full”
Great setup
Just tried it out, had lights flashing as I went up to check on it and apparently the TTS notification when haywire, so I need set it to fire once lol
You can set the automation to fire after a reasonable delay, so that if something is firing continuously you aren’t getting constant/overlapping messages.
Yeah I’ve edited it to activate after 20 seconds now and added a Boolean that also activates with a delay of 2 hours before the Boolean turns off. I’ve also added a node to check if the Boolean is off before the notification.
So now it activates if the sensor has been submerged for 20 seconds and the notification hasn’t fired for 2 hours.
I may have another edit and have the Boolean turn off if the sensor hasn’t activated for a while instead.
I’m also considering adding the sensor to the light automation in my kids bathroom to stop the lights going out. I already have a motion and door sensor doing this, but the kids keep managing to knock the door sensor off with their heavy handed door use.
I believe there’s a throttle node in node-red to only let the flow continue once in a settable amount of time. I use it to keep security camera motion notifications at bay.
I’ve just set it to trigger after a delay, seems to have done the trick
Say, are you planning to update the stock firmware of the device with Tasmota? Will you keep on top of updates? Is there a need to?
No need, it’s ZigBee so it’s just hooked in via my ZigBee usb, no Tuya involved except in its manufacturing.
Do you not need to update the firmware for newer versions of Zigbee?
Not with any of the ones I’ve bought recently (also from AExpress)